Viewing clothbake during cloth bake
I've noticed that this is sort of flaky.  If the bake cache is empty, the current frame is 1, and I click the "play" button, it usually does what you're asking for: it bakes and shows the current state in the 3D View window.  Emptying the cache doesn't always work, though.  One way to quickly clear it is to click the "Pinning" checkbox off and on (or on and off, depending on how you have it set).

[Edit] I saw another post on here that said that playback has to be set to "No Sync" (which I think is the default).